I drove to the cliffs at breakneck speed, recklessly screaming around the bends in Porthkennack’s perilous roads. As I drove, it began to rain—really rain—and big fat drops obscured my vision, forcing me to slow down just in time for a wide truck to come at me from the opposite direction. At first I was all set to try and slip past him, unwilling to stop, even for a moment, but I came to my senses at the last second and skidded to a halt.
The driver gave me the finger, and he was totally justified, but I paid him no heed and stamped on the accelerator, spraying gravel behind me as the car lurched forward. The cliffs were still a mile away, but I could see the ocean on the horizon, and it was dark and angry, its blue hue so deep it was almost black. And the sky was fast catching up with it.
I’d spent most of my adult life chasing light, and today was no exception, but I’d never felt such desperation as I raced against the fading sun. Locals knew the cliffs like the backs of their hands, but I didn’t—I only knew the car park, the railings, and a couple of benches. If Kim had retreated to somewhere more secluded, I’d never find him in the dark.
Panic seized me, and I drove faster, pushing the car’s one-litre engine and dubious power-steering to its limits. The tyres skidded and the brakes screeched, and the roar of the struggling exhaust kept me grounded, tying me to reality so I didn’t lose my mind—because my mind was my own, but my heart was Kim’s, and he needed me.
The road to the cliff-top car park finally came into view. I took it as fast as I dared and threw myself in the first space I saw. Not that it mattered, the place was deserted—no cars, no people . . . no Kim.
I scanned the area and my heart sank. Had I got it wrong? Was he at home? Or somewhere else? Perhaps he’d gone to Red . . . needing her more than he needed me after all. It wasn’t as though he’d made me any promises.
The possibility that he’d simply left me was like a truck driving into my gut. The impact spread from my belly and into my veins, and the bad memories my time with Kim had erased came flooding back. I hadn’t loved my ex like I loved Kim, but the betrayal had broken me all the same. Did Kim have it in him to be so callous? My heart said not, but his absence left a void that only images of him and Lena together—without me—could fill.
But as I stared out into the darkness, a scenario far worse than Kim leaving me for Lena crossed my mind. The absolute certainty that Kim needed me returned, and brought with it a boatload of panic. Brix’s concern had been too obvious to ignore, Calum’s too. And if they were worried, I was fucking terrified. Kim rarely talked about falling off the wagon, but he’d left no doubt that it had been brutal in the past—destructive and cruel. Oh God. What if—
A flash ahead derailed my thoughts. Shit. The sky had darkened to the point where I could barely see my own hand in front of my face, but Kim often wore a biker jacket with a sliver of reflective fabric on the sleeve, a strip of pale gold that was now caught in the beam of my headlights.
I jumped out of the car, leaving the engine running, and dashed across the car park, vaulting the low wooden fence. The rain fell like a monsoon around me, but I felt nothing, saw nothing, except the heartbreaking sight of Kim huddled on the bench, his eyes closed to the world.
“Kim, Kim!” I reached him and dropped to my knees, taking his limp, cold hand. “Kim? Wake up, mate. Please?”
There was no response, and for a terrifying moment, I honestly thought he was dead. But then he shifted slightly, like a baby in deep sleep, and his hand fell from mine.
I grabbed it again and squeezed it, and then shook him hard, the way I’d seen paramedics do to the drunks on Oxford Street. “Kim, come on. You can’t stay here. You’ll freeze.”
If he hadn’t already. I leaned over him, searching for another sign of life. I waited for the smell of booze to hit me—beer, wine, whiskey, I’d never asked him what his choice of poison was—but instead of alcohol, all I smelt was wood and rain.
All I smelt was Kim.
I put my hand to his cold cheek. “Kim.”
My plea was whispered this time, but by some miracle seemed to penetrate where I’d failed so far. He groaned, and then his eyes fluttered open, bloodshot and unfocussed at first, until he saw me.
“Jas?”
“It’s me. Can you sit up?”
Kim blinked, clearly lost. “What are you doing?”
“Might ask you the same thing. It’s wetter than an otter’s pocket up here, and cold as fuck.”
“Cold?”
The confusion in his troubled gaze tore me in two. I took both his hands in mine and tugged him gently forward, causing his feet to hit the ground. “Kim, we’re up on the cliffs, mate.”
“The cliffs?”
“Yeah. You didn’t show for the barn opening. I was worried. Calum told me to look for you here.”
“Calum.”
It wasn’t a question this time, and slowly but surely, cognition returned to Kim’s usually keen green eyes.
He ripped his hands from me and covered his face, groaning. “Fuck.”
I rubbed his damp leg. “It’s okay. We can fix it. How much did you drink?”
“Drink?” Kim revealed his face again. “I didn’t drink anything.”
“No?” Stress sharpened my tone. “So why were you passed out on a bench in the rain?”
“I—” Kim glanced around. “Shit. How long have I been here?”
“I don’t know. Do you remember coming up here?”
Kim nodded. “I came out for a walk.”
“When you were drunk?”
“I’m not fucking drunk, Jas!”
His shout was sudden and loud, even with the vicious wind swirling around us. I flinched and shrank back. He caught my arm. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Then tell me what happened, Kim. Please? I can’t help you if you don’t.”
His only answer was a violent shiver, reminding me that we were both wet through and exposed to the elements—him more than me, and Christ knew how long he’d been out here.
I coaxed him to his feet, steadying him as he wavered. “Come on. Let’s get warm.”
He didn’t protest as I led him to my car, which, because I’d left the engine running, was thankfully still warm. I sat him in the passenger seat and slammed the door harder than I’d intended, helped along by the wind, then got in the driver’s side.
Kim’s head was down, his eyes closed. I touched his arm, rousing him. “Okay?”
He nodded slowly. “Where are we going?”
“Home.”
And by that, I meant my place, where I knew where every drop of booze was, and could easily dispose of it the moment we walked through the door.
We made the journey in silence; me focussed on the road, Kim staring dazedly out of the window. If he was surprised to find himself at my flat a little while later, it didn’t show. I steered him inside and helped him out of his wet clothes. “Shower. Warm yourself up. Don’t lock the door, though, in case you fall.”
“I’m not going to fall.”
He drifted away before I could answer. I waited for him to slam the bathroom door, but he didn’t. He left it open and turned the shower on, and after a few minutes, I poked my head around the door to find him sitting in the bath, his face hidden in his knees.
The sight of him broke me, and the frustration I’d felt since the car park melted away if, indeed, it had ever truly been there at all. Kim’s addiction was an illness, and I wouldn’t let him suffer alone.
I joined him in the shower and turned the heat up to properly warm his bones. At first, he didn’t seem to notice me gently rubbing shampoo through his hair, even when I slid my fingers over his scalp to the base of his neck, kneading. It was a while before his quiet sigh broke the silence.
“That feels nice.”
“Good.” I rose up on my knees, ignoring how my body naturally responded to being so close to Kim, and massaged his shoulders. “Enjoy it while you warm up. I’m usually too amorous around you to be this nice.”
“You’re always nice.”
“Yeah? If that was true, perhaps I’d have known earlier that you needed me, eh?”
Kim looked up. “You weren’t here.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’d never want you to be— It’s just— Fuck.” Kim banged his head on the tiled wall behind him. “I called you a few times. Your phone was off.”
“The battery ran out. I’m so so—”
“Jas, please. Don’t be sorry for my bullshit. I can’t handle that guilt on top of the rest of it.”
With Kim apparently ready to talk, now seemed as good a time as any to steer him out of the shower and into my room. He said nothing as I dried us both off and passed him some clean boxers, so I pointed at the bed. “Get in.”
He obeyed, and I slipped in beside him, clicking the TV on for some background noise before I turned to face him and gestured for him to pick up where we’d left off in the shower.
Kim shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything that you can tell me. I’m not angry, Kim, and I’m trying really hard not to say I’m sorry, but you’ve got to give me a little here. Will you tell me what you drank?”
“I didn’t drink.”
“Kim.”
“I didn’t, I swear. I wanted to, and kinda lost my mind over it, but I didn’t drink. I promise.”
Cynicism bubbled up my throat as I stared at him, warring with the reality that Kim had never lied to me before. That, despite his demons, he was so painfully honest sometimes that I wanted to weep. Addiction was toxic, but this was Kim, damn it. He was worth so much more.
I believed him. I had to, or we had nothing. “So what happened?”
“What always happens, I guess.” Kim stared down at his hands and traced the anchor tattoo on his index finger with his thumb. “I’m not good with downtime, especially when I’m on my own. I finished the barn job in the middle of the night, and no one was around—you, Lena. And the next day I had nothing to do either. It sounds fucking stupid, I know. Like, why couldn’t I read a book or some shit, or annoy Brix for the day? But it doesn’t work like that. It gets louder and louder.”
“And you want to drink to stop it?”
“I always want to drink, but it got out of hand this time because I had nothing and no one to distract me. I went mad with the power tools for a while, but then the generator failed, and I couldn’t get hold of you, or anyone else, and then I felt like a selfish prick for even trying, so I took a few zopiclone, hoping I could sleep it off.”
“Zopiclone?” I searched my brain for where I’d heard the word before. “Sleeping pills?”
“Yeah . . . God, don’t look at me like that. I couldn’t handle it, Jas. I needed to sleep.”
His voice wavered. I slipped my arm around his slender shoulders and pulled him close, brushing his damp hair out of his face. He shivered, though I suspected he wasn’t cold. “Go on,” I said softly. “Tell me how you ended up on the cliffs.”
“I don’t really know, to be honest. The first pill I took didn’t work, so I took another, and then one more. They must’ve kicked in all at once while I was walking. Good job I wasn’t driving, eh?”
The thought alone was enough to make me feel sick. “You could’ve got bloody pneumonia.”
“I’d take that instead of this. Sometimes I think I’d rather have a fucking tumour.”
There was no mirth in Kim’s tone, only fatigue. I kissed him gently, and then coaxed him to lie down with his head in my lap. Kim’s addiction wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was I. For now, that he was safe, warm, and in my arms was enough.
I tracked Brix down on Facebook while Kim slept, and called him. He seemed unsurprised to hear from me. I combed my fingers through Kim’s hair as I filled Brix in on our cliff-top adventure. “He banged some zopiclone, but he says he didn’t drink.”
Brix hummed thoughtfully. “If he says he didn’t drink, then he didn’t. He hides from us, but he doesn’t lie. Mind, popping the sleeping pills isn’t much better than hitting the sauce. It’s still a chemical reaction to emotions he can’t handle.”
I couldn’t argue with that, and I didn’t try. “I wish Lena was here. She’d know what to do, wouldn’t she?”
“No more than you. Besides, Lena is gone, and it’s how they both want it. If you’re going to be with Kim, you need to learn to deal with this in your own way.”
He was right, of course, and for that to happen, Kim and I had to talk again when he woke up, which sent a new flare of anxiety rippling through me. “He took three zopiclone. Is that dangerous?”
“I honestly wouldn’t know, but I think I remember him telling me the pills he had were the lowest dosage. Hang on, I’ll ask Cal. He remembers numbers and shit.”
Brix broke off to mumble to who I presumed was Calum, and my attention drifted to my bedroom window. It was raining again in earnest, and I couldn’t help imagining Kim still passed out on that bench, soaked to the skin, and exposed to the bitter wind. Could he have died if I hadn’t found him?
Thankfully, Brix saved me from the reality of answering that question. “Calum reckons Kim can take four of those pills before he hits the maximum dose, so he should be fine. Besides, he’s probably already slept most of it off.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I have no idea if I’m right, mate, but I know Kim won’t want you worrying yourself to death. He doesn’t wear guilt well. That shit fucks him up more than anything.”
Don’t I know it. Though, as I thanked Brix and hung up, it struck me as ironic that I’d learned as much about Kim today as I had in all the time I’d known him, at least as far as his addiction went. And why was that? Kim had never been particularly reticent about it. I just hadn’t bothered to ask.
And Kim thought he was the selfish prick.
Kim slept right through until morning, while I watched, unable to close my eyes to the guilt and worry kicking up dust in my gut.
It was barely dawn when he woke. I slid down the bed to face him, cupping his cheeks with my palms. “You okay?”
Kim blinked slowly. “I think I need to go to a meeting.”
“A meeting?”
“AA.”
I nodded. “When and where? I’ll take you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“But you’re gonna?”
“Yes.”
Kim’s wry half smile was the poor ghost of any grin I’d ever seen from him, but this morning, with the early morning light filtering through the curtains, it felt like the sun. “I’m sorry, Jas.”
“Don’t be. I’m here. I got you.”
“Why?”
I looked down at Kim. “Why do you think?”
Kim didn’t seem to have an answer, and now didn’t seem the time for me to force my undying love on him. Instead, I got up and made tea, and then drove him inland to a church in the neighbouring town. Apparently there was an AA meeting there every third Thursday of the month, which made me wonder what local addicts did for support the rest of the time.
I pulled up outside. Kim opened the door, but he didn’t get out. “You don’t have to take this crap on,” he said. “We can go back to being friends anytime you want.”
“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t support you in this?”
“A friend with better things to do than hang out at a dead-end church at dickhead o’clock in the morning.”
“I’m not hanging out at the church. I’m going to sit in that café across the road and eat my bodyweight in fried-egg sandwiches. Unless you want me to come in with you?”
Kim shook his head. “Some meetings let you bring someone in. They don’t like it here.”
“Then I’ll be just across the road. And, Kim?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll always be your friend, whatever happens.”
Kim’s meeting would take about an hour, and so I made good on my promise to decamp to the nearby café—an establishment that would’ve been a greasy spoon in London, but down here had just enough seashell adornment to masquerade as a tearoom.
The fried-egg sandwiches came with a giant pot of tea, and after loading up on HP sauce and sugar respectively, I was set to keep my vigil.
Thankfully, I’d thought to grab my laptop before we left my place. Not because I had any desire to work, but because without something to occupy my tired brain, there was no doubt that Kim would emerge from the church to find me snoozing on my dirty plate.
I opened my MacBook and tapped in my password. In my bag was the external hard drive I always carried with me, stuffed full of unfinished personal projects. Feeling brave, I plugged it in, and was unsurprised as a bazillion shots of Kim filled the screen. Most of them had been taken at my old flat on that fateful trip last month, but I had quite a few from before and after that time.
Curious, I lined some up in chronological order, starting with the clandestine shot I’d taken of him that day I’d met him, and finishing with a playful pose he’d struck for me the day before I’d gone to Bristol. I studied the images closely, searching for any sign of the deterioration in Kim I’d missed, but found none. The first shot was of his alluringly slender back, and in the last, his grin was as easy and bright as it had ever been.
What had I missed? Kim claimed there was nothing, but how could that be true? Was addiction really so fucking illogical?
As I thought it, I realised I’d inadvertently hit the nail on the head. Logic played no part in this horrible disease. How could it, when Kim had been so happy when he’d called me that last time? Though happy was a relative term, because what the hell did it mean?
I had no answer to that, and the images of Kim filling my screen with his grace and beauty hurt my heart. I shut them down and opened up a folder I hadn’t looked at in years—a file that was a decade old.
The individual images opened in the sequence that I’d taken them twelve years ago, growing progressively more horrifying with each shot. I poured over them with the morbid fascination only a photographer could have with images like these. As usual, I got lost in them, making little tweaks here and there, and wondering what had become of the bloodied, soot-smeared faces I’d captured that day. Wondering if the bewildered horror in their eyes had ever faded.
“That’s real pain, eh?” Kim slid into the seat beside me. “Puts things in perspective.”
“I hope you’re not about to tell me that you have no right to have problems.”
Kim shrugged, but I could tell my gruesome screen was distracting him. My hand itched to close the laptop. I stewed on it, like I’d sat on most of the images all these years. Kim leaned closer, his shoulder brushing mine. “What on earth are all these? It looks like a war zone?”
“Close. I took these at Edgware Road twelve years ago.”
Kim missed a beat, then his tired eyes widened. “Seven-seven? The bombings?”
“Yeah. I was on my way to uni when people started to come up from the tracks. I tried to help at first, but there was nothing I could do.”
“Fuck. I remember watching it on the news with Brix. How old were we? Nineteen? Yeah, something like that. It didn’t seem real to us, though. City life never did until Brix took up with it.”
“It didn’t seem real to me, either. Without these, I wouldn’t really remember it.”
“What did you do with these after? Did they go to the papers?”
“A few.” I enlarged the images I’d sent to the Times all those years ago. “I didn’t let them pay me, though. The fees went to the memorial fund.”
Kim pointed at a bloodied young woman, her face burnt, her long hair stained a dark, mottled red. “I think I’ve seen her before.”
Of all the images he could’ve picked out. I closed down every file except that one, and retrieved two more from a different folder. It clearly took Kim a moment to realise the photographs were all of the same woman. He frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Fate,” I said. “I’d been at Kings Cross early that morning, shooting some buskers for a uni project. I caught her by chance as she headed underground, and then again an hour later, when she came up at Edgeware. I tracked her down when I found the first image and asked if I could photograph her one last time, so I had all three images—before, during, and after. Mad, eh? She keeps all three in a drawer at her office. Says it reminds her how fragile life is.”
“She ain’t wrong.” Kim’s eyes remained fixed on the young woman.
Knowing how much time I’d lost to staring at photographs that made my nerves itch, I closed the laptop. “How did the meeting go?”
Kim shrugged. “Good, I s’pose. I feel calmer, which helps, though it freaks me out to see so many pissheads in one place. Reminds me how far I can fall, you know?”
“There must be people who are doing well too, though?”
“A few. I tend to hover near them, absorb some of their willpower.”
“Does it work?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
I nudged him. “Tough. I’m not taking you home till you’ve eaten.”
Kim took a little persuasion, but eventually relented and ate a small breakfast that turned into a big one as his appetite returned. I watched him, still drinking my cauldron of oversweet tea, and wondered when he’d last eaten. Perhaps sensing that I was fretting, Kim pinched my cheek. “Stop worrying. I’m sorry I fucked up, but you can’t let it be all you see when you look at me. It wins that way.”
“It’s hard not to worry, mate. I didn’t see this coming.”
“And you never will. I don’t, and I know it better than anyone.”
“There’s nothing I could’ve done to help you?”
“Probably not. I just need to keep fighting. Plenty of addicts win. There’s no reason I can’t too.”
Hope stirred in my battered heart. The change in Kim after the meeting was clear to see—the fading lines of stress in his face, the upright set of his shoulders. The weight of what he’d been through in the last few days was still there, but he had a tangible grasp on it, like he was emerging from the other side of a recurring bad dream. Was it too much to wish that the nightmare would weaken with each pass? “I believe in you.”
“I know. I think that’s why I didn’t dig up the whiskey I buried in the strawberry patch last year.”
I couldn’t gauge if he was joking or not, but the sentiment wasn’t lost. “I do believe in you, Kim, and I want to be there for you—here for you—if you’ll let me.”
“I couldn’t push you away, even if I wanted to. I love you, Jas.”
“What?”
Kim looked away. “I was kinda hoping that you already knew.”
I caught his chin and forced him to meet my gaze again. “Knew what?”
“That I love you.”
I grinned like a fucking maniac, couldn’t help it. “You love me?”
“Course I do. And I really do, Jas. This ain’t the addiction bullshit messing with my head. You have to know that . . . I’m still me, with or without it.”
“Oh God, I do know that, I promise. The only reason I’ve been too messed up to say so is because I bloody love you too.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Dude, how could you not know?”
Kim laughed, and it was the first real humour I’d seen in him since the weekend. “Erm, perhaps because we’ve been too busy working and fucking to get around to saying so?”
“Actually, you did say so, when you called me in Bristol, but I was half-asleep, so I thought I’d dreamed it.” I laughed with him, and leaned in to loll my head on his shoulder. He was warm and strong beneath me, and the faith I had in him seemed all the more real. “You’re going to be okay, Kim. We both are, together. I can feel it.”
“Me too, Jas, me too. I’ve just gotta remember what it means.”